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Contemplating today's Gospel

Today's Gospel + homily (in 300 words)

Wednesday of the Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time
View 1st Reading and Psalm
1st Reading (Num 13:1-2.25—14:1.26-30.34-35): The Lord said to Moses [in the desert of Paran], «Send men to reconnoiter the land of Canaan, which I am giving the children of Israel. You shall send one man from each ancestral tribe, all of them princes». After reconnoitering the land for forty days they returned, met Moses and Aaron and the whole congregation of the children of Israel in the desert of Paran at Kadesh, made a report to them all, and showed the fruit of the country to the whole congregation. They told Moses: «We went into the land to which you sent us. It does indeed flow with milk and honey, and here is its fruit. However, the people who are living in the land are fierce, and the towns are fortified and very strong. Besides, we saw descendants of the Anakim there. Amalekites live in the region of the Negeb; Hittites, Jebusites, and Amorites dwell in the highlands, and Canaanites along the seacoast and the banks of the Jordan».

Caleb, however, to quiet the people toward Moses, said, «We ought to go up and seize the land, for we can certainly do so». But the men who had gone up with him said, «We cannot attack these people; they are too strong for us». So they spread discouraging reports among the children of Israel about the land they had scouted, saying, «The land that we explored is a country that consumes its inhabitants. And all the people we saw there are huge, veritable giants (the Anakim were a race of giants); we felt like mere grasshoppers, and so we must have seemed to them». At this, the whole community broke out with loud cries, and even in the night the people wailed.

The Lord said to Moses and Aaron: «How long will this wicked assembly grumble against me? I have heard the grumblings of the children of Israel against me. Tell them: By my life, says the Lord, I will do to you just what I have heard you say. Here in the desert shall your dead bodies fall. Forty days you spent in scouting the land; forty years shall you suffer for your crimes: one year for each day. Thus you will realize what it means to oppose me. I, the Lord, have sworn to do this to all this wicked assembly that conspired against me: here in the desert they shall die to the last man».
Responsorial Psalm: 105
R/. Remember us, o Lord, as you favor your people.
We have sinned, we and our fathers; we have committed crimes; we have done wrong. Our fathers in Egypt considered not your wonders.

But soon they forgot his works; they waited not for his counsel. They gave way to craving in the desert and tempted God in the wilderness.

They forgot the God who had saved them, who had done great deeds in Egypt, wondrous deeds in the land of Ham, terrible things at the Red Sea.

Then he spoke of exterminating them, but Moses, his chosen one, withstood him in the breach to turn back his destructive wrath.
Versicle before the Gospel (Lk 7:16): Alleluia. A great prophet has arisen in our midst and God has visited his people. Alleluia.
Gospel text (Mt 15:21-28): At that time Jesus withdrew to the region of Tyre and Sidon. And behold, a Canaanite woman of that district came and called out, “Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David! My daughter is tormented by a demon.” But he did not say a word in answer to her. His disciples came and asked him, “Send her away, for she keeps calling out after us.” He said in reply, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel.” But the woman came and did him homage, saying, “Lord, help me.” He said in reply, “It is not right to take the food of the children and throw it to the dogs.” She said, “Please, Lord, for even the dogs eat the scraps that fall from the table of their masters.” Then Jesus said to her in reply, “O woman, great is your faith! Let it be done for you as you wish.” And her daughter was healed from that hour.

“O woman, great is your faith!”

Fr. Jordi CASTELLET i Sala (Vic, Barcelona, Spain)

Today, we often hear the expression “faith has been lost”, said by people who ask our communities for the baptism of their infants or the catechesis for their children or the sacrament of marriage. These words depict the world in a negative way while trying to convince us past times were better and that we are now at the end of a stage where there is nothing left for us to say or to do. Evidently, these are basically young people who, in its majority, watch rather sadly how the world has changed from their parents' times, who used to live perhaps a more popular faith, which they have not known how to adapt to. This experience leaves them unsatisfied and without any capacity of reaction when, in fact, they might find themselves at the gates of a new stage they could very well take advantage of.

This passage of the Gospel draws the attention to that Canaanite mother that demands grace for her daughter by recognizing in Jesus the Son of David: “Have pity on me, Lord, Son of David! My daughter is tormented by a demon” (Mt 15:22). The Master is surprised: “O woman, great is your faith!” and He can do nothing but to act in favor of those persons: “Let it be done for you as you wish” (Mt 15:28), although this does not seem to fall within his schedule. However, God's grace is manifested in human realities.

Faith is not a privilege of a few, nor is it the property of those who think they are so good or of those who have ever been good, and have this social or ecclesial label. God's action precedes any Church's action and the Holy Spirit is already acting upon persons we would have never suspected could bring us a message from God, a request in favor of the needy. Saint Leo says: “My beloved, the virtue and wisdom of Christian faith are our love of God and of our neighbor: it does not miss any obligation to any pious works procuring to render God worship due to him and to help our brethren.”

Thoughts on Today's Gospel

  • “It is certain that truth always flees from those minds which are not humble” (Saint Augustine)

  • “The Being of God is the most true: it is the eternal, the origin and the foundation of everything. And Christ is the incarnate image of that Truth” (Benedict XVI)

  • “Very often in the Gospels people address Jesus as "Lord". This title testifies to the respect and trust of those who approach him …: "It is the Lord!" Jn (21:7)” (Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 448)

January 12th
The Baptism of the Lord (C)

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